Alone All Along
by BonesBird
Summary: She has to get used to the change she has chosen. But the ghosts of the past linger around as she adjusts. H/H S3.


**Title: Alone All Along  
****Summary: She has to get used to the change she has chosen. But the ghosts of the past linger around as she adjusts.  
****Lyrics: My Immortal - Evanescence**

**This song came to me at work this afternoon, and this fic followed when I arrived home. Good news on baby Ed, he's taking milk now.**

**If you know of a similar song that I could use for a Hotch POV on this story, please add in your review.**

**For Sheila, Dana, Jen, Pat, Layla, Sam, Ty and everyone else in my facebook roleplay troupe. Love you all**

_**

* * *

I'm so tired of being here  
**__**Suppressed by all my childish fears  
**__**And if you have to leave  
**__**I wish that you would just leave**_

She slowly walked round the empty house. In reality it was far from empty. It was full. Full of possessions that were worthless and meaningless. She knew it had been her decision, however her thoughts were on him as she moved through the house, thinking what she could change to make it _her_ home. No longer _their_ home. Every day she wished he could have been a doctor, or a businessman. A less dangerous, less time consuming job. A job that wouldn't have been more important than their family.

_**Your presence still lingers here  
**__**And it won't leave me alone  
**__**These wounds won't seem to heal  
**__**This pain is just to real  
**__**There's just so much that time cannot erase**_

Their son needed his dad. She could never take Jack away from him. However bitter she felt about his choice. To go to the case rather than to stay home. He could say only one, but one would turn to two, two would turn to four. She didn't want to have to be left at home, alone, worrying about the situations he found himself in. When he had first joined the BAU it had been exciting, something he could share with her when he returned from a case. Something that signified that what he did was meaningful. That he helped people.

_**When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
**__**When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
**__**And I held your hand through all of these years  
**__**But you still have all of me**_

Within months he had started dreaming of the cases, of the men and women he chased. He'd wake in the night. Suffering from nightmares, delusions. Fears for her. Their so-far-unstarted family. She'd be there for him through every nightmare, through every thought, every scream. Every time he went on a case he left a little, tiny, piece of himself behind. Over the years those pieces had added up, more and more. Until some mornings she couldn't be 100% certain that he was the same man she had fallen in love with.

_**You used to captivate me  
**__**By your resonating light  
**__**Now I'm bound by the life you left behind**_

Love was something they had never struggled with. Even as she stood there. Looking into the bedroom they had shared for so long. The home they had hoped to raise a family in. She still loved him. She was sure, absolutely sure, that she would love him for as long as her heart was beating. As long as she could still draw breath she would hope that she could forgive his choices, and possibly reconcile them. She just wanted to know that he would be safe. That he would come home to Jack every case.

_**Your face it haunts  
**__**My once pleasant dreams**_

The times he'd been hurt, which had been numerous in his career, almost always brought her to deciding it was time for him to leave. But after a 2 week suspension, where he'd been at home every day, he still picked to go back to work. Maybe she hadn't been entirely fair to him in demanding he not go back to the BAU. She knew how dedicated he was to his team. There were days she was jealous of his job, of his team-mates. The infuriating Gideon, the cocky Morgan… all of them. Because they saw so much more of her husband than she did.

_**Your voice it chased away  
**__**All the sanity in me**_

So the decision to let him go. To let him be what he wanted to be. Had hurt her more than she thought anything possibly could. She couldn't even imagine how he'd felt walking into this house to find so much gone. All her things, all Jack's things. Everything that they had shared had shattered in the minute she'd decided to leave. Did she regret the decision? No. But did she regret that it had come to the point where that decision had become the best thing for her to. Despite the love she felt for him. Ripped her into a thousand shreds whenever she thought about it.

_**These wounds won't seem to heal  
**__**This pain is just to real  
**__**There's just so much that time cannot erase**_

There were the simple facts she thought about. That was the needs of her and her son. They both needed more stability than what they had when he was there. So although her love still burnt strong, she was too angry, too stress and too unhappy, to think about letting him back into their lives and into their home. Jack missed his daddy. She knew that. She missed Aaron too. She was sure that he missed them too. Change was never easy. But the change wasn't as big as it could have been.

_**I tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone  
**__**But though you're still with me  
**__**I've been alone all along**_

They could have been separated years ago. So little changed in Jack's routine. Little changed in her routine. Except now she didn't try to find time to fit in with Aaron. After the separation, she realised she'd been alone for a while. Although he loved her, and she loved him. Love simply wasn't enough to keep them going indefinitely. One day she still hoped, prayed, they would reconcile, when she'd forgiven him. She would wait for that day.

_**When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
**__**When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
**__**And I held your hand through all of these years  
**__**But you still have all of me**_


End file.
